Code Words
by Alexxus Anderson
Summary: When Michael receives as strange postcard from an old friend, he gets dragged into an intrigue that may or may not end in an assassination. It all depends on how fast he can locate the Mouse.
1. Chapter 1

_For spies, keeping in touch is often touch and go. When you spend so much time being someone else, a letter or phone call from a friend calling you by the wrong name can lead to unnecessary hospital stays and funeral arrangements. Hence the need for code words and phrases, something to flag a person as friend, a verbal or written calling card that can be used without giving away too much and putting everyone involved at risk. Something short, sweet, simple, and easy to work into a conversation._

"Someone sent you a postcard, Michael," the elderly Ms. Westen was in the process of lighting a cigarette when her son let himself into the house.

"You called me down here for a postcard?" There was no denying that he had the occasional urge to sit his mother down and have a lengthy discussion about the real definition of the word 'emergency' but he knew that she would listen, smoke, smile, nod and then call him with an _emergency_ the next time that the cable went out.

"Well, Michael," she had finished lighting her cigarette and moved across the room to the divider between the kitchen and the dining room. "It's a weird postcard." A few puffs later as she held it out to him. "There's almost nothing on it."

The postcard that she handed him was the kind that you could buy in any of the gift shops at Walt Disney World for highly inflated prices considering they were really just pictures on paper. On the front, Mickey and Minnie Mouse holding hands in front of Cinderella's Castle with a moon and stars. Tiny red x's had been drawn on their huge cartoony eyes. On the back in solid, steady block print:

**I HATE THE MOUSE**

The postmark was three days ago in Orlando, Florida, no surprise considering.

"Mom, when did you get this?"

"It came this morning," that first trace of worry was creeping into her voice.

The United States Postal service is not the most efficient organization on te planet; however, it can be counted on to move something as small as a postcard in under a week. The postmark said as much. By car, you can get from Orlando to Miami in less than a day.

"What's the matter, Michael?"

"Nothing, Mom," he folded the postcard in half and stuck it in his pocket. "Just a note from an old friend. I've got to go." It was hardly unusual to see Michael walking and using his cellphone at the same time, but the hurriedness of the whole thing did draw an interested eyebrow.

"Yello," Sam picked up his phone and opened it left handed. His right was busy with a freshly prepared mojito.

"Sam, I need a favor."

"Shoot, Mikey."

"I need everything recent you can get your hands on regarding a cleaner, Mei-Ling "Mickey" Chin." Michael slipped into the driver's seat of his car and shut the door.

"A cleaner, Mike?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because Sam I think Mickey is in Miami."

*******

"Mei-Ling Chin," Sam sat on the stairs headed up to the second floor of Michael's dubiously named apartment looking at a manila folder. "American born. Trained sniper, black ops, anti-terrorism terrorist maneuvers. Suspected to have taken part in over a hundred suspicious deaths over the past ten years."

"That all," considering that even if the file only covered the last ten years, there should have been more in it than that.

"Yeah, let me tell you, Mikey, no one wants to talk about this lady. It's like she barely exists. Her whole file can be summed up in one word, empty. Like my beer can, we go any more?" He looked expectantly in the direction of the fridge as if he could will there to be more beer just waiting inside for him to get to.

"Not unless you brought it with you, Sam," Michael sat down on his bed, yogurt and spoon in hand. "Anybody got a clue why she's on American soil?"

"Nope, as far as they are concerned, she's probably homesick. I get the feeling that her name is out of their pay grade though. I'll keep digging." Shutting the folder, he slipped it down on the stairs and leaned on his elbows. "This chick sounds like bad news, Mikey, how'd you get to know her?"

"We partnered up a few years ago," Michael answered, opening his yogurt. "And she sent a postcard to my Mother from Orlando. Mickey doesn't usually do America, so I figure if she's in Florida, she's probably on her way here."

"And you're trying to find out what she's been up to before she gets here so that you can find out what you're dealing with."

"Exactly, Sam." Michael had no choice but to look up when Sam cleared his throat before asking his next question.

"So when you say that you partnered up with her are we talking Fiona tactical support partnered up or we've got a mutual target and we'll disavow each other's existence partnered up?"

"Sam..."

"Come on, Mike. We're talking about a woman who can kill a man from six blocks away. This might be important." Mike had his spoon halfway to his mouth in a conversation stalling action when Fiona let herself in. The look on her face made him swallow quickly.

"So when were you going to tell me that you are getting postcards from _old friends_?" Whether she was saying that from the perspective of a jilted girlfriend or a colleague who doesn't like being left out of the loop, Michael wasn't truly sure. The lines got blurry about that a little too often.

"Look Fi, like I was telling Sam, I owe her a few favors. She did some big things for me."

"What kind of big things?"

"The drag my ass out of a war zone kind of big things, okay? Everybody just drop it."

_One big difference between spies and normal people is that while people make friends, spies cultivate assets. Unfortunately spies are people too so every so often, the lines get blurred._


	2. Chapter 2

_Having a good memory is an integral part of this business. You have to remember your name, your contacts, your cover, on the spot without missing a beat. Unfortunately, that also means you have a hard time forgetting. No matter how much you'd like to. _

**Karachi, Pakistan (several years ago)**

Michael sat in a hotel lobby, his tan suit well pressed, shades the color of smoke over his eyes. With an easy motion, he checked his watch. His contact was late. Ten minutes now, nothing good ever came of a contact not being punctual. It usually meant that one started looking for them at the bottom of the nearest body of water. Or in areas like this, their body turned up out in the desert being pecked at by birds. Either way, they were not much help.

Picking up the case beside his chair, Michael moved from where he had been sitting. It was time to find out what happened to his contact. The mission could be compromised. If so, he needed to clean out his room, wipe everything down, and disappear. No use in letting anyone know he'd ever been there.

At the door of the hotel, a man called to him,

"Sir, sir, wait. A message for you." He wore a uniform, but it wasn't one that Michael immediately recognized. It might have been the uniform of the hotel, but a quick scan of the immediate area showed the front desk clerk was wearing something very similar, yet in a different color. Not wanting to appear as if anything was wrong, Michael waited, letting him get closer. A case like the one he had in his hand worked effectively as a bludgeon and as a shield. At least for the first shot. The second would undoubtedly go straight through it and that is assuming they are not using armor piercing rounds, at which point the entire idea is moot. In this area of the world, one generally assumes armor piercing rounds are the norm. It's just safer that way.

"A message for me," the spy didn't make any overt motions to pull a weapon, yet he was on edge preparing for the necessary flight if it came.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Lot says that he's sending a car for you," the man in the uniform smiled at him, bobbing his head in a gesture of agreement or happiness one couldn't be quite sure.

"Sending a car for me," Mr. Lot was not someone he was familiar with. Automatic red flag. "Here?"

"I cannot say for certain, sir. I was only told to tell the man in the lobby in the tan suit a car was coming for him courtesy of Mr. Lot." An unwitting pawn, he had to be. Michael spared a thought for whether or not this man was going to live to see the next day.

"Thank you," Michael tipped the man in US currency. It tended to go fairly far. That tip might be the difference between one of his children starving or not. Then he moved out of the hotel, hurrying but not running. If Mr. Lot was sending the car to the hotel, Michael did not want to be at the hotel when it got there. He had to have been made. Time to scrub the mission, cut his losses, and run. There would always be another chance to pick a side in the Pakistani argument over control. If there was one thing this region was good for, it was infighting. Miss a shot, wait a month or two, you'd get another one. Come back under another name with a different deal for a new person and you can try again. Eventually, you'll achieve your objective.

His movement through the crowds was erratic. Any tail was going to have a hard time keeping up with him. Exactly how Michael tended to like it. Letting himself into his rented space, he almost breathed a sigh of relief. Except that there were footprints on the carpet. The maid came when Michael left in the morning, something Michael insisted on.

"Mr. Lot has a car downstairs for you," said an unidentified voice as the hammer on a gun was pulled back with a click. Michael turned his head enough to take in the person and followed the motion with tossing the case at him. The first shot went straight through it. Armor piercing rounds, as expected, sometimes it sucked to be right. The time necessary to open the door was time he didn't have, so instead he went charging forward and into the bedroom. The choice to have a hotel room on the second floor was a matter of convenience. High enough up that people cannot see in your windows very well without really looking but close enough to the ground the fall won't kill you as long as you don't land on your head and crush your neck.

Two shots through the window to weaken it and Michael crashed through it. He landed wrong and as he was recovering from what he hoped was only a twisted ankle, another gun was stuck in his face.

"I know, I know, Mr. Lot has a car waiting for me." Well, at least he was going to get a chance to meet Mr. Lot.

* * *

Michael sat in front of his computer, leaning back in the chair, hands behind his head. He hadn't thought about those sweltering days in Pakistan in a long time. Maybe because it was easier to let memories like those disappear. The cool blue light of his screensaver played across the dissatisfied look on his face. He hadn't thought about Mickey herself in a long time. Pakistan hadn't been the only time he'd seen her or worked with her. He counted at least four times the two of them crossed paths.

Fiona didn't remember but Mickey came Belfast. The two women walked past one another, one on the way out, the other on the way in. If they spared each other more than a glance, he didn't know or care. Mickey was sent to clean up a situation in the city, one involving him and Fiona. As a professional courtesy, she stopped in to let him know what was going on. He convinced her to let things sit for a few more days before taking any steps. A good thing too. Mickey's orders were to eliminate the connection between an IRA gun smuggler and an Iranian arms dealer, a deal Fiona was smack in the middle of, and make it look like they turned on one another. He defused the situation before Mickey was forced to shoot anyone.

Yet he remembered what she said sitting across from him in the booth.

"My friend, I'm a cleaner. When I'm done, there are no loose ends. They are either tied up or burned off. Simple as that. Leave no loose ends and I don't have to handle it for you." Then she had paid for both of their drinks and walked out on him.

Getting up, he walked down the short flight of steps from his computer station to his bed. He needed to find out what loose ends Mickey was there to take care of and quickly. Preferably before the woman started killing people.


	3. Chapter 3

Fiona sat at the bar under an umbrella drink on the table in front of her. A rare moment without either Michael or Sam. Her phone rung down in her bag and her eyes rolled behind expensive old Hollywood battered wife sunglasses. Think of the devil and he will call. She rummaged through her purse a moment before the offending object came to hand.

"What is it now, Michael," she answered impatiently. There was always some kind of crisis going on his life. Not that she complained since it tended to make her life more interesting but it did still get annoying fairly quickly.

"Ms. Glenanne," the voice on the other end of the line was not Michael Westen. It wasn't even male. No, it was female, one of those who has consciously learned to hide their accent from casual listening. A very nervous person indeed. "There is a sniper rifle trained on your position." Much in the same tone as 'It may rain tomorrow'. Considering what little Sam had been able to dig up on the woman in question, perhaps she considered those two things in the same category.

"The Famous Mickey, I presume," Fiona made no attempt to look around. If there was a sniper rifle trained on her position, frantically looking for it just meant she gave away how much the idea bothered her. It wouldn't help in the slightest her finding it.

"Famous might be a bit of an overstatement, but I didn't call you to argue." The woman on the other end did let a little bit of amusement escape at being called famous. Cleaners weren't meant to be famous, they were meant to be vengeful faceless wraiths circling like vultures to get rid of the evidence. "There is a man thirty feet to your left, blue polo shirt, reading and walking your direction." There was a pause as Fiona located the man in question. "I am going to miss a headshot. You may way to grab him during the confusion."

The man had his head tilted forward as he read his book, not watching where he was walking. Dark hair, a suggestion of warm colored skin from his hands. Blue polo shirt and khakis held up with a simple belt. Who was he? Fiona snapped back to the immediate at the sound of,

"Three,"

in her ear. She tossed her phone back in her purse just as the shot went off and a bullet pinged off the pavement. As predicted, people panicked. No one noticed one more woman running or the fact she was dragging a man along as she went.

"We need to get you off the street," Fiona told him while dragging. The man looked at her with confusion.

"Who are you," he finally asked three blocks away from the scene.

"The person saving your neck," Fiona pulled up to a stop, pulling out her phone again. She dialed Michael's number from memory, one hand keeping hold of her prey, the target, whatever one wanted to call him. "Michael!"

"Fi," Michael was not particularly surprised to hear from Fiona, but her tone said something more than usual was going on. It was rare for her to get this excited over anything unless there was some form of violence involved.

"Got a phone call from your mystery woman, the one who likes to shoot people, and rescued the person whose life she apparently decided to spare."

That made _no_ sense. Mickey tied off loose ends, why would she let one get away on purpose?

"You're sure?"

"She did everything but send me an engraved invitation." The man with her, whose name she hadn't even learned, listened without saying anything. Too stunned to speak perhaps. He certainly understood and spoke English.

"Where are you? Can you get him back here?"

"Sure, I have to go back for my car though," Fiona admitted realizing in the rush she had left her car back at the bar.

"Go get your car, meet me at the loft in twenty minutes."

Michael was sitting in the loft, a pistol at hand, when Fiona entered, the man in the blue polo with her. "Hi," he waved at the newcomer. "So I understand someone tried to shoot you."

"She didn't try," Fiona corrected. "She told me flat out she intended to miss and I needed to grab him off the street."

"She," the first word the man had spoken since asking who Fiona was. It was obviously a question.

"An associate of mine who prefers to settle her affairs with a nine millimeter. It saves her a lot of paperwork." He got up and went around the kitchen counter. Opening the fridge, he offered, "Yogurt?"

"No, thank you," the man returned. "This associate of yours, does she have a name?"

"Mickey," anyone who knew her knew her by that name, her real name was just something to put on orders and the official file of her life, as much bullshit as that was. Michael proceeded to get a yogurt for himself and when he saw Fiona silently holding out her hand for one, despite not looking in his direction, he put one in her hand also. He did not however give her a spoon. They were both expectantly waiting for the man's response.

"Mei," he shook his head. "What are you mixed up in now?"

"So you're acquainted with her," not exactly unexpected. This seemed like a personal thing somehow. Few murders were random. The killer generally tended to know the victim somehow. Since they hadn't been able to discover yet why Mickey was even in Miami, it was probably best to treat it as she had a personal vendetta going on and the postcard was just a head's up she would be in his territory.

"I would hope so, I married her." Both of them stopped and stared at the man standing before them.

_Everyone says you have to expect the unexpected. That is all the more true in this business. However, nothing can really prepare you to find out a long time associate has gone and tied the knot. _


End file.
